


heliotropes

by StarlightDragon



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Constipation, First Kiss, Florists, Flowers, Frottage, Language of Flowers, Love Confessions, M/M, Pining, Reunions, Stanford Era, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-04
Updated: 2016-05-04
Packaged: 2018-06-06 07:51:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6745618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarlightDragon/pseuds/StarlightDragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Heliotrope Folklore (flower): According to Greek legend, the nymph Clytie was in love with the sun God Helios (or Apollo), but he did not return her affections (or left her for another woman). Clytie pined away, spending all of her days gazing at the sun, not eating, resting or talking to anyone. Helios finally turned her into a flower and she continues to this day following his movements through the sky. The flower represents unrequited, eternal love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	heliotropes

**Author's Note:**

> Hey look, I wrote a thing for the Wincest Reverse Bang 2016!
> 
> Link to art: [beautiful art here!!](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6746020)

"So. Tell me about your tattoos."

Dean Winchester had not seen his brother for three years, and he knew he would have changed, but he didn't expect him to have changed quite this much. He supposed that in his mind, he saw some kind of frozen in time version of Sam, not even necessarily the Sam who had left for Stanford without even glancing back over his shoulder at the Impala, but a slightly earlier Sam. Maybe even just a few months before. That had been a Sam who had smiled, dimpled cheeks bright pink in the cool air as he talked about his future after he finished school, a Sam who bundled himself in plaid and forgot to cut his hair and who sometimes lay on top of the covers of Dean's bed late at night, talking a mile a minute, the idea that either of them might need to sleep never even crossing his mind. A Sam who was happy.

That was how Dean liked to remember him, and it was a shock to see him like this; his head half-shaved, his arms covered in ink, his jeans ripped and his band T-shirt faded along with his smile.

And he supposed that, ironically, the memory of Sam as happy and bright and positive had been one of the things that stopped him from coming back for so long. Of course, there had been his dad too, who had sworn that Dean had no choice but to choose between him and Sam. There had been the problem of transport, figuring how to get the car from right under his father's nose so that he could take it from the deep Midwest all the way out to the coast. There had been the hundreds of possible hunts that called him, that reminded him that he wasn't allowed to prioritize his feelings for one boy over the thousands of people who were getting hurt. There had been so many reasons.

But Dean knew that if he'd had any cause to suspect Sam wasn't happy, he'd have been on his way to California faster than his father could say "he doesn't miss you."

If it had been necessary, he'd even have flown.

\--

Sam Winchester had not seen his brother for three years, and he assumed he would have changed, and he was proved completely wrong. At first sight Dean appeared to look exactly the same; the same freckles, same leather jacket, same glittering green eyes that had been dulled by years of pain but that brightened again the second he looked at Sam. He even drove up in the same car, roaring the engine and showing off as he spun it round on the field, not even trying to be inconspicuous.

And by this point, Sam had long since given up even trying to find out what was going on with Dean. The answering message that used to proclaim, "This is Dean's other, other cell," had years ago become a clinical bleep followed by a nasally voice announcing that the number was not in service. And although Sam heard plenty of reports in the news that sounded like they could be successful hunts, he couldn't assume that Dean was the one responsible for them. As much as he liked to think of his brother as the best hunter currently alive, that didn't make him the only one.

If Sam wanted to sound dramatic, he would have said that Dean showed up just as he was starting to get over him. But he knew how completely untrue that was. He was never going to get over Dean, not as long as he lived. Not now, not when he was in law school, not in twenty years' time when he was married with three kids and a house in suburban LA and a fancy porch swing. It would still always be there - that soft burning in the depths of his soul that reminded him that he'd had someone once, a protector, someone he could depend on, who would do anything for him, someone who made everything worthwhile because even if his days were terrible, that person would still be in his dreams, so he at least had those to look forward to.

And deep down, Sam had always known that if Dean ever did come back - even if he came back when Sam was rocking his daughter on that fancy porch swing - Sam would give up however many years he'd spent trying to forget him, in an instant.

He just hadn't ever expected it to be a reality until the day he got out of class late one October afternoon, just as the sun was starting to go down, only to see a car that was fifty kinds of 'way too familiar' skidding across the road in the middle of campus, as though whoever was driving it had suddenly spotted something - or someone - and needed to stop, immediately, with no time to spare.

The car swung onto the field, a few people having to jump out of its way, before it came to a complete stop right in front of Sam. 

Sam couldn't see inside the car. He didn't recognize the license plate. The body had more scratches and dents than any car he remembered; no reason to suspect it might be _his_ Impala.

But even from feet away, Sam knew. He knew how that car _felt._

Dean climbed out of the car, brushing himself off and grinning at the assembled crowd, triumphant. As soon as they all saw it wasn't any kind of celebrity, nothing to see here, they moved on, disappointed.

Except Sam. Sam stayed.

After all, Dean was a celebrity to him.

"Dean- I-" Sam tried to speak, but his knees swayed, in danger of giving way. He looked like he was about to pass out.

Dean dashed forwards to catch him just in time, and the two of them ended up sprawled out on the grass following Dean's cry of "Whoa! Easy, tiger."

Sam opened his eyes, blinking up at Dean in confusion and hope and terror, trying to sort this out in his head.

"What - what the hell are you doing here? Has something happened? Is Dad okay? Bobby? Tell me, Dean, what's wrong, you wouldn't be here unless something was wrong-"

Dean held up a hand to silence him, and for one crazy moment Sam thought Dean was going to touch his finger to Sam's lips, but he didn't. "Nothing's happened, I promise you. I'm just here because..."

Dean started the sentence without knowing how he was going to finish it, and there were lots of possible endings. '...Because I'm weak and I'd rather be here with you than actually try to do any good in the world' was one. '...Because I miss you and without you I just feel empty, like there's no fucking point to anything' was another. '...Because we never got to say goodbye when you left', was maybe the most accurate of all.

He couldn't make himself say any of them, though. The sticky words got caught on his tongue and made him grimace because he couldn't force them out until finally he blurted-

"...because you never paid me my money from the last time I beat you at pool."

Sam stared at him for a moment and then burst out laughing. It wasn't the first time he'd laughed recently. He laughed all the time; at his friends, at movies, even at the nerdy law jokes his professor made in class. But it was the first time his laughter had made him really feel free.

Dean had traveled thousands of miles to collect on a bet, and that was the best set of circumstances - and by far the most _Dean_ set of circumstances - that Sam could possibly have imagined.

\--

"So. Tell me about your tattoos."

\--

The woman who ran the flower store had tattoos, and Sam assumed that was where he'd got the idea from, too. He couldn't quite remember. Freshman year was still a blur to him, from the moment he'd shown up on campus during orientation week with a single duffel bag that strangely stood out among the cars crammed with suitcases and electrical appliances, right through two full semesters of classes, exams, extracurriculars, and even the occasional social event.

It was easy enough at first for Sam to support himself. He was still living off his last couple of stolen credit cards and the cash he'd made from hustling pool, and that combined with his meal plan and the fact that he had no actual real desire to go out anywhere meant that his money lasted a long time and he didn't spend a whole lot. He bought a birthday present for his friend Jess from Anthropology 101 when she turned nineteen in November, because she'd helped him settle in, distracting him when he started to think too hard about his past. He bought a textbook for his law class, because if that was what he wanted to go into in future, that seemed like an important investment. He bought fancy coffee the day his roommate's coffee machine broke, and he bought a couple of new outfits to better fit in with the style that the other students wore, including a deep red Stanford sweater that was so soft against his bare skin.

He threw out a handful of his old plaid shirts that had been hand me down from Dean and he tried to tell himself that the reason wasn't because he could still smell Dean on them when he pressed his nose to the chest and took a deep breath.

But in time, the money started to run out. By January or February, Sam was beginning to get down to his last few dollars, and he started to make excuses not to go out and grab a soda with his friends after classes. There were only so many excuses of 'trying to eat healthily' he could manage when he was the kind of guy who ate two helpings of mac and cheese every day at the dining hall.

That was when he decided to get the job.

 Most of Sam's friends worked in coffee shops. It made a lot of sense, he thought - access to discounted caffeine all the time was definitely something most Stanford students could benefit from. Others worked in restaurants, because tips were good and it was an easy job to fit in around classes. Others worked as lab assistants, as pizza delivery people, as tour guides, as movie theater attendants.

To Sam's knowledge there had never been a single other Stanford student who had worked in the tiny florist's on the outskirts of town.

But it wasn't like he had a whole lot of choice. Most of the jobs had been snapped up way back in September when he'd arrived, and at this time of year nobody was hiring, except for the tiny store near to the lake with a handwritten sign in the window that read 'Part-Time Assistant Wanted. Good with Hands. No Plant Allergies.'

Sam had hands that worked, and he wasn't aware of any allergies at all, and it wasn't like he could afford to be picky, so he went inside.

There was nothing neat about the place - it was overflowing with colors, bright green leaves almost bursting with light and energy and an entire rainbow of flowers exploding from every stem, covering every gap and every bit of wall in the room. It was too much all at once, and Sam wanted to shield his eyes to get away from all of it. He felt like he should be wearing sunglasses, even though the lights themselves were no brighter than the average store. He glanced upwards and gasped when he saw that there were even hanging boxes of flowers from the ceiling, creeping over the sides of their containers and peering down at him, giving him no escape.

"Can I help you?" A woman spoke from behind the counter; the only other person in there. As if the room wasn't already floral enough, she was wearing a blue sweater patterned with yellow daffodils.

"I'm here about the job opening?" Sam asked. It came out more like a question than he intended.

The florist nodded, watching Sam, not actually saying anything.

Sam frowned, and he didn't think he should be the one who had to do all the prompting here, but he did it anyway. "So, do I have to apply for the job, do you need a... a resume, some references, anything like that?"

She shook her head. "You just have to pass the interview."

Sam nodded, shrugging his shoulders back and tilting his chin slightly upwards. He'd recently started thinking about pre-law, and if he wanted to be a lawyer, he needed to be able to talk to people, convince them of things. An interview should be no problem. "Right. Yes. Good. Can I do that now, or do you want to arrange a time?"

She frowned as though she'd never heard of anything so ridiculous as arranging a specific time for something. "You can do it now."

"Fine by me." There wasn't anywhere to sit, so Sam stayed standing.

"There's just one question. If you could send flowers to anyone right now, money or distance no object, who would you send them to, and what flowers would you send?"

Sam was sure his disbelief showed on his face. That wasn't an interview

The florist stared right back at him, her face staying completely expressionless.

So Sam gave the question some serious thought. Who _would_ he give flowers to? Guys usually gave flowers to their girlfriends, but Sam didn't have one of those, nor did he want one. Jess was fast becoming one of the first close friends he'd ever had, and the two of them would study together in the library for hours at a time in comfortable silence, until she got bored and started quizzing him about his life or talking about whatever she was passionate about this week, be it the fall of the Roman Empire or the banana crisis of the 1950s or modern progressive rock music. Then there was Brady, his roommate, who was constantly kicking Sam out of his own room to bring a girl over (a situation that had led to a lot of these aforementioned late night study dates with Jess) and who had twice almost got Sam in trouble because of weed smoking that Sam himself had had no participation in, but who, at the same time, had so much in common with Sam and had introduced him to a whole host of TV shows and video games that Sam had never experienced before now, teaching him how to relax for the first time in his life. And then there was Mrs Logan, his anthropology professor, whose passion for her subject had almost singlehandedly made him confirm anthropology as his definite major for the next four years, because her class was the one that inspired Sam, and he always wanted to work on the essays she set before any others. He didn't admit it to many people, but he spent a lot of time in her open office hours discussing his future at the school, in the department, and sometimes just his life in general, because she was an interesting person who kept seven different varieties of tea in her office and Sam still hadn't figured out which one was his favorite.

Yeah, any of those people would be good people to give flowers to.

But there was only one person who came to Sam's mind when he considered the possibility of sending somebody flowers.

"I'd send them to Dean."

The florist didn't ask who Dean was. "What kind of flowers would you send to Dean?"

That was an even more difficult question to answer, because Sam knew nothing about flowers. He could name lots of them, the scientific names as well as the common, but he didn't think that would impress her. He knew that roses were the typical flowers to send to someone you loved, but that was too simple. There was nothing simple about him and Dean.

He started to poke around the shop, reading the descriptions of all the different flowers, the neat handwritten cards pinned below every box. With every step he took he expected the florist to yell at him and say that he was cheating, but she said nothing.

It took him a while, but finally he found a small pot of purple flowers, positioned so high on the wall that even he could barely read the cramped writing on the card, that seemed to be just perfect.

"I'd send him heliotropes."

Sam started work the following day, and he didn't notice the tattoos so much at first. But once the weather got warmer and the florist started to wear short sleeves rather than thick jackets, he couldn't help but pay attention to the fact that her arms were completely covered in flowers. In their own way, they were even more beautiful than the flowers in the shop itself. And every time Sam looked - because he just couldn't help himself, they were kind of mesmerizing - he noticed more and more different kinds; common roses and tulips and daisies interspersed with the unexpected; the flame tip and the larkspur and the sugarbush. And the more Sam learned about different types of flowers and their meanings, the more he was able to identify in her tattoos, and it became almost a game that he played with himself.

It took him weeks to finally gather the courage to ask her where she got her tattoos done, but finally he did, and she directed him to a store in downtown San Francisco.

Sam got his first tattoo the day he finished finals week of his freshman year - a tiny dog on his shoulderblade.

He increased his hours at the florist's over the summer, and he didn't have a whole lot else he wanted to do with the money, so he kept going back to the tattoo place.

And he never actually intended to get the heliotropes themselves as a tattoo. Because he had so many other ideas - small mementos and reminders of people and things that were important to him - that made him happy, and why would he want the constant reminder of the brother who hadn't even tried to chase after him when he'd left? When he'd worked so hard to get away, why would he want to remember his past every single time he looked down at his own arm?

Until the day came that he walked into the tattoo parlor clutching a scales of justice design one of his more artistic friends had done for him yesterday, fully prepared to explain it to his usual tattoo guy, only to find that the words that came out of his mouth were-

"You ever done heliotropes before?"

\--

"So. Tell me about your tattoos."

They'd been sitting in mostly silence on the couch in the living room of Sam's apartment for a few hours at this point. Every so often one of them would pipe up with a stupid question about the other's life, Sam wanting to know if Dean had been on any good hunts recently, Dean asking if the food on campus was as bad as everyone always said it was. But the truth was Dean hadn't been hunting anything out of the ordinary, and campus food was neither terrible nor amazing, so both of those conversation topics faded out pretty fast.

Tattoos were a little more interesting.

"I've got seven," Sam began. "Which probably seems like a lot for someone who struggles to make rent, but... they're important to me."

Dean shrugged. "Your money. Your choice what you do with it."

Sam supposed that made sense coming from someone who bought mostly beer. "Right. So, the first one I got is the little dog on my shoulderblade. I don't have a deep and meaningful reason for it, the dog doesn't represent anything, I just like dogs a lot and they remind me of being happy so when I decided I wanted to try something out, I got a dog."

"Probably better than spontaneously getting a real dog," Dean pointed out, and Sam chuckled in response.

"Can't argue with that. After the dog I got the feather, cause Mom always used to say there were angels watching over us, so that one's for her. And then I got Bobby's flask on my ankle, cause that reminded me of him. There's a quote from Aristotle - he's a philosopher, probably not something you care about, on one arm. Tree from the Stanford logo - coming here changed my life, thought I should mark that somehow. Finally got round to getting the anti-possession symbol on my chest, just like we always talked about. Made me feel safer at night. And then..."

"And then you got the flowers."

They were kind of impossible to miss, after all. The tiny blossoms trailed all the way up and down Sam's right arm, thick black outlines surrounding soft purple flowers and fluttery green leaves. 

Dean shifted closer to Sam on the couch so he could inspect them. He hadn't seemed all that interested in actually seeing any of the others, but the flowers were kind of mesmerizing. "They look real."

"Yeah, well, I took real flowers in for reference when I got them done. And it took forever, you know, I was sitting in that chair for hours and my arm had gone numb and I was just trying to think of something to distract myself with and then I thought, maybe they should put movies on in tattoo parlors, something that customers can distract themselves with while someone's sticking needles into their skin." He was talking too fast and too loud, trying to fill the whole of Dean's brain with his words so that Dean wouldn't ask the obvious next question. And maybe he wouldn't. Maybe to Dean they would just be flowers, chosen because Sam liked the aesthetic of them. 

"I like that idea," Dean grinned. "Not something I'd do anyway. Spend enough of my time getting beat up without going out and doing it for fun too."

Sam nodded, because that was fair enough, and for a moment he thought he was in the clear.

"So, what kind of flowers are they?"

Sam couldn't exactly lie. He was a florist; Dean would expect him to know at least something about the different kinds of flowers. "They're... they're heliotropes." 

"Heliotropes." Dean tested out the word in his mouth, enunciating every syllable. "I never heard of them."

"Well, you did now. Could tell you all the mythology behind them, but it's lots of weird stuff from Greek legends and you probably don't wanna hear about it."

Dean shrugged. "You know me. If I'm gonna read stuff I like it written after 1950, none of this weird Greek stuff that's got nothing to do with the world we live in."

Sam loved learning about the history of the world and finding out everything about where they came from, but he nodded because it was easier and because that was how he was going to get out of this conversation. He was suddenly wishing they were back to the stilted questions about life on campus.

"So, why those flowers, and not, I dunno, roses dripping blood or something? Isn't that a tattoo that punks get?"

"I'm not a punk, Dean," Sam chuckled. He appreciated the compliment coming from anyone else, but he didn't really want Dean to see him as anything different from what he'd been before he'd gone away. 

He took a deep breath. "I guess I just like them. And... and because I got tattoos for Mom and Bobby... I wanted to get one for you too. And these flowers... they remind me of you."

Dean frowned, not getting it. "Isn't the anti-possession one for me?"

Sam shook his head. "No, cause that's not how I see you! That's for hunting, and I know you think hunting's all you are, but it's not! And I didn't think I was ever gonna see you again, and I didn't want my only memory of you to be some demon that you killed once, I wanted to remember _you_ , cause there's so much more to you."

"So what is it about these things that remind you of me? Cause no offence, but they're small and purple and kinda girly and I don't see how they're anything like me."

Sam shrugged, and he turned away, desperately not wanting to have this conversation. "Got more to do with the meaning of them."

"Which is?" Dean sounded impatient. Or maybe just uncomfortable. And Sam wasn't a huge fan of either option.

"Forget it. It doesn't matter. Like you say, it's dumb girly flower shit, and you probably don't even really care. Which is fine! I mean, at least that's normal! Cause not caring about stuff is what I expect from you! And when you don't care about something, well, I'm used to that, and I know where I am with that. But when you show up at my door after years of silence and you're asking me questions about my life and you're sitting next to me instead of leaving a ten foot gap of no homo personal space, that's when I start to get a little confused! So excuse me for acting weird and not having exactly the right answers to all your questions, but you can't just walk back into my life like we never said goodbye because, Dean, there's so much about these last three years you don't know, and there's so many... so many feelings I've figured out, and they change everything, and you'll never get it!"

Sam was shouting by the end of his speech, red in the face and dizzy from the exertion of it, and before he could focus in on Dean's expression again and see how he'd reacted, he stood up, spinning around and striding out of the door, heading to his bedroom, fully expecting that by the time he emerged, Dean would have vanished once more leaving Sam to wonder if he'd dreamed this all up in an overcaffeinated hallucination.

Dean watched Sam leave, and Sam was barely out of the door before Dean's fingers twitched towards his phone.

He had to know. He knew, he _knew_ he should respect what Sam clearly wanted to keep a secret, but he hadn't driven all the way from Nebraska without stopping to sleep only to let Sam walk out the door yet again. So he didn't let himself think everything through too much. He just cast aside his unwanted guilty thoughts and typed in 'heliotrope flower meaning and let Google do the rest of the work.

_Heliotrope Folklore (flower): According to Greek legend, the nymph Clytie was in love with the sun God Helios (or Apollo), but he did not return her affections (or left her for another woman). Clytie pined away, spending all of her days gazing at the sun, not eating, resting or talking to anyone. Helios finally turned her into a flower and she continues to this day following his movements through the sky. The flower represents unrequited, eternal love._

Dean had to read the passage four or five times before he even began to understand what it was saying. 

He didn't entirely understand the legend. After all, if Clytie only ever gazed at the sun and never ate, surely she would be dead long before Helios could turn her into a flower? Why would he even bother to do that? There were too many plot holes and not enough character development and Dean was sticking to Vonnegut, thankyou very much

But... the last three words. Those, he understood.

And they hurt him. They made his heart ache in a way he wasn't familiar with. It was a different kind of ache to the one he'd felt when Sam left. That had been a bittersweet ache

But this - this realization that Sam had spent the last three years waiting for Dean, that Sam, too, had been unhappy, had thought Dean didn't share those feelings? That hurt more than Dean could ever begin to describe.

And there was only one idea Dean had for fixing things. Far too late, of course, but still better than not at all.

He picked up his phone again, and typed in a new search keyword.

\--

"Think you got it wrong, Sam."

Sam looked up. He'd been lying face down on his bed, staring at Much Ado About Nothing, which he has to write a paper on for his Shakespeare class, but not actually reading it and instead going over the fact that he'd just had his first conversation with Dean in over three years, and instead of making the most of it he'd somehow managed to completely fuck it up. This, this was why he didn't deserve second chances. This was why he'd been right to get the fuck away from his family when he could.

Dean was leaning against the doorway, his eyes fixed on Sam, not moving or even blinking.

"What did I get wrong?" Sam grumbled, staring at Dean, trying to play spot the difference between Dean's face now and Sam's memory of it, pinpointing every single way Dean had changed in the time he and Sam had been apart. Dean was probably just about to leave again, saying goodbye on his way out the door, and Sam could do with the updated memories.

"Your tattoo. You picked the wrong damn flower."

Instinctively, Sam ran a hand over his arm, feeling the very slightly different texture of his skin where the ink was. "How the hell would you know?"

"I've been doing some Googling. I know it doesn't exactly compare to three years spent working in a flower shop, but, it's enough to get a basic idea, right? And... you should have got ambrosias."

Sam stopped breathing. Later, he would swear that it wasn't just him - he would swear that in that moment, everybody in the world stopped breathing, that even though nobody else knew what was happening, they knew, somehow, that everything had changed forever and that the fabric of the universe would never be quite the same.

"Ambrosias mean-"

"I know what they fucking mean, Sam, you don't have to say it," Dean snapped. He stood awkwardly in the middle of the room, his arms held stiffly by his sides, because this was such an unfamiliar environment for him, both physically and emotionally.

Ambrosias. Sam remembered it so clearly, even though it had been years ago. It had been one of his very first days in the shop; and a tiny girl with dark hair had ran up to the counter in tears, saying that she'd made a terrible mistake. Sam made her a cup of tea while the florist calmed her down and when she was feeling a little bit better, the girl managed to explain that she'd turned down a date with another girl who'd asked her out, only to realize a day too late that she did, in fact, have feelings for her.

The florist, as usual, had found the perfect solution.

Ambrosias - requited love.

Sam climbed off the bed, knocking his book to the floor, and he took Dean's face in both of his hands, resting their foreheads together. "So you- you-" he choked, not even sure what he was asking, close to tears all the same.

"Yeah," Dean agreed, sounding just as breathless himself, and he screwed his eyes shut to try to contain some of his emotion.

Sam kept his own eyes wide open, because if he could see Dean then it was easier for him to believe he was there.

And he wanted so badly to press his lips to Dean's own, because he'd stared at Dean's plump pink lips so many times over the years and wanted them more and more the older he got, and here, now, he could see them so closely, see the exact way they curved and shone slightly where he'd clearly just licked them. And it would have been so easy to finally kiss them, and Sam was sure Dean wouldn't even have minded, but... Dean was older, he'd always been the one who'd taken care of Sam, and Sam felt like he had to wait for Dean to make the first move.

Dean kept him waiting for far too long, longer than Sam thought he'd be able to take, and then, finally, he shifted just enough to crash his lips against Sam's in one sudden, forceful motion.

It was as though Dean had been trying to hold himself back and now that he'd made one move, nothing in the world could possibly stop him from continuing. 

Sam kept his hands on Dean's face, running his thumbs over Dean's cheeks, while Dean brought his own hands to tangle in Sam's hair, tugging on it to make sure Sam stayed just where he wanted him. Sam didn't mind. He wanted whatever Dean wanted, because just getting to kiss Dean and be close to him was already the most amazing thing Sam could have possibly imagined, and he deepened the kiss still further, parting his lips and whimpering into Dean's mouth.

Despite the pressure of the kiss, Sam could tell that he'd been right. Dean's lips were softer against his than anyone else Sam had ever kissed, and Sam wanted to bite down on them, to make them even redder so that whenever Dean spoke or tried to do anything with them, he'd remember this.

After all, no matter what was actually happening here, Sam was never going to forget the experience. He wanted to make sure Dean didn't either.

Neither of them were quite sure which one of them made the first move, but all of a sudden they were falling together onto the bed, both of them grabbing at each other, doing their best to keep kissing but missing each other's mouths half the time. Sam ended up leaving wet, sloppy kiss marks all over Dean's face and neck and neither of them seemed to mind in the slightest.

And when Dean climbed on top of Sam they both told themselves it was just to make the kissing easier, because both of their necks hurt when they were trying to lie next to each other. And then it was so, so easy to move from Dean straddling Sam to the two of them lying down, Dean heavy on top of his brother, Sam rocking his hips faster and faster, neither of them caring or even really noticing that there were still two layers of clothes between them because really, they were already so much closer than they'd ever been before, so what difference would those last few layers make?

They moved against one another, and Sam heard Dean make all kinds of noises that before he'd only heard through thin motel room walls. Now Dean's grunts and moans were right next to Sam's ear, and Sam didn't have to grab a pillow and rub himself against that pretending it was his brother's soft skin, stuffing his own fist into his mouth so that Dean (or whatever girl he was with) wouldn't figure out what he was doing. Now, it was just the two of them, and Sam could feel that Dean was just as hard as he was, and he felt so much better than any pillow.

They kept thrusting against each other, neither of them able to stop but neither of them wanting to, until finally with a desperate exhale of Dean's name, Sam exploded inside his jeans, his mind and both both far too aware that this was Dean on top of him, Dean who he'd wanted and fantasized about for so long, to hold himself back any longer. After that, it was only a few more thrusts before Dean followed him over the edge, with a much louder and more insistent cry of _"Sam!"_

Dean slumped to the bed, rolling off of Sam and closing his eyes again. His breathing started to slow and Sam thought he might even have heard a snore or two, and part of him thought that Dean had maybe gone to sleep. He knew there was no way he could get to sleep himself yet, not considering what had just happened, but he let himself get comfortable, close enough to Dean that he could feel his warmth.

Sam had only just started believing that today was actually real when Dean shifted, opening his eyes.

"So. I was kind of thinking. There's a lot of ghosts in California."

Sam blinked. He certainly hadn't been expecting that. "I suppose there are, yes."

"Lots of hauntings, stuff that nobody's ever dealt with," Dean continued, giving Sam a pointed look.

Sam thought he maybe, possibly knew what Dean was getting at here. But he didn't dare to hope. Not yet. After all, the first time he'd moved here, he'd asked Dean to come with him. Said that Dean should just steal the Impala and the two of them could drive off together into the California sunset.

And Dean had said no, told Sam he was crazy and that he was never leaving Dad, and Sam had got on a bus ready for his first ever road trip with people who weren't part of his family.

"There are over a hundred side in the San Francisco Bay Area that are said to be haunted," Sam nodded knowledgeably. "And that's not even counting all the monsters that move around and just visit here, the ones that go undetected or pass for human activity... that's gotta be years of hunting, right there."

Dean opened his mouth, hesitated for a moment, and then closed it again. After a long pause, he finally decided to say what was on his mind. "Do you think it'd be enough hunting to pass the time while my boyfriend does his senior year of college and then three years of law school?"

Sam's breath caught in his throat, and he tried to laugh, but it came out as more of a sob. "Your boyfriend, huh?"

Dean didn't say anything, just flushed bright red and pulled a face like he was mad at himself, and Sam hurried to reassure him.

"Yeah. I do. More than enough hunting."

Dean beamed, and he let Sam wrap his arms around him, burying his face in Sam's chest as the two of them just held each other, same way they did in motel rooms when they were kids and it was too cold or too scary or too lonely to sleep in separate beds.

"In fact, your boyfriend might even have to help you on a few of those hunts," Sam murmured into Dean's hair, and Dean stiffened.

"You-"

"I've missed it. I don't want hunting to be my entire life again, but everyone's gotta have a hobby. And you're gonna need backup sometimes. Someone to keep you safe."

Dean pulled back a little, biting his lip awkwardly. "Yeah, but you gotta keep yourself too, alright? Cause I need... I need someone to come home to."

Sam didn't reply for a while. He ran a soothing hand up and down Dean's back, wishing now that Dean wasn't still fully clothed, but too tired and too comfortable to suggest moving.

"You should learn the flowers," Sam whispered. "Cause I know you find words hard, and then... then you could say things without having to really say them. And I'd know what you mean."

"You should teach me," Dean whispered back, even quieter.

\--

The next day, the two of them went to the tattoo shop. Sam got a tiny ambrosia flower tattooed on the inside of his right wrist, and Dean got a matching one on his left, wincing at the pain, locking eyes with his brother for support.

When they walked hand in hand, the flowers brushed.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr **casandsip.tumblr.com**


End file.
